Nayana LaFond

Nayana LaFond (born 1981) is an American painter, sculptor, and curator of Anishinaabe, and Métis descent. A citizen of Métis Nation of Ontario, in 2020, she began the Portraits in RED: Missing & Murdered Indigenous People Painting Project, a series of over 110 portraits created to raise awareness for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis. The collection, which features black and white acrylic paintings with red symbolic accents, has been exhibited at institutions including the Southern Vermont Arts Center and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. LaFond operates the project on a non-profit basis, gifting the original works to the subjects or their families.

Early life and education LaFond was born She is of Anishinaabe, and Métis descent, with ancestral ties to tribes primarily in Ontario.

LaFond studied painting and photography in college and holds an Associates in Visual Arts from Greenfield Community College. LaFond is currently a Frances Perkins Scholar at Mount Holyoke College. The red handprint symbolizes the silencing of Indigenous women, the blood of the people, and their resilience. As of 2024, LaFond was in the process of winding down the series. Lafond states this decidion is based on a desire for the work to not be exploited. She also sites being uncomfortable with the attention she received as the artist and felt it detracted from the message. The collection has been exhibited at various institutions, including the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center in Oregon, the Southern Vermont Arts Center, the LAVA Center in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Personal life As of November 2023, she was 42 years old. She is a leukemia survivor who underwent a bone marrow transplant in 2014. She has a daughter.